Internships: More Important Than Ever

You are a fresh college graduate with a stellar GPA, a killer cover letter, and raving recommendations. You should slide right into the job market, right?

The only problem is: There are about 3.5 million of you already there. According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development, there are 35705905 students currently enrolled in colleges across the nation, armed with their degrees and diplomas to swamp the job market pool. Moreover, these terrifying numbers can only be expected to rise some more.

You might argue that your above 3.0 sets you apart from the hordes, but statistics claim otherwise. The average GPA at four-year colleges and universities has risen from 2.52 in the 1950s to 3.11 in 2006, effectively transforming an 'A' into average. The state of the economy secures the constancy of this increasingly brutal competitiveness.With good grades being so commonplace, what else remains to be done to ensure that your résumé does not end up in the trash pile?

Internships are the messiah of this rut that more than 10 million college students are stuck in worldwide. Internships are no longer run-of-the-mill coffee-fetching jobs for a few extra rupees of pocket money. They are now synonymous with relevant work experience that could very well be solely responsible for a smooth transition from a gangly college student to a successful professional.

Internships, besides adding remarkable weight to your résumé, also ensure numerous additional benefits. They add to your self-awareness, often ensuring that you do not end up in the wrong field of work by offering an upfront taste of that reality beforehand. In a recent survey of students enrolled in Singaporean colleges, 93% of respondents indicated that internships influenced their career decisions. Before the stint, 32% said they were undecided about their post-graduation plans. This figure dropped to 18% after their internships, the study showed. Internships thus enable students to make informed career decisions.

Internships are excellent places to build your professional network, as you work in a setting surrounded by full-time professionals mentoring you, spending enough time to develop long-time professional relations which come in quite handy when you are on the fast track to becoming a full-time professional yourself.

Internships are slowly becoming one-way tickets to full-time paid jobs, as employersincreasingly realise that on-campus recruitments do not come close to guaranteeing efficient workers. Internships prove to be the perfect setting to showcase your work ethic, punctuality, and other soft skills. Besides these soft skills, internships also do exceedingly well at what is their primary purpose: building you a repertoire of technical skills. Classroom education, although necessary, does have its limitations. Internships bridge over the gap left behind in classroom learning by providing you with a practical setting to apply your knowledge without the pressure which is a characteristic feature of full-time jobs.

Internships are great tools to improve your chances as a job applicant and help make you a better potential employee. Make an investment in your career, and look into becoming an intern.